Pitching & Throwing / Start to Start Routine

by Chuck Hernandez

Chuck has served as bullpen coach for the California Angles in 1992, and as the pitching coach for the California Angles (1993-1996), Tampa Bay Devil Rays (2004-2005), and the Detroit Tigers (2006-2008). In 2009 he was the Cleveland Indians bullpen coach. He is currently the Miami Marlins pitching coach. Prior to his coaching career, Chuck played in the New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox organizations from 1979 to 1983.

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Coach Chuck Hernandez shares how you can develop a start to start routine for young pitchers in this segment. Coach Hernandez is a firm believer that there needs to be a bullpen or side session in between starts, and in a perfect world 2 days prior to the start is when this should happen. The other days in between the starts and side sessions is where you get running and long tossing done. Remember a stiff arm is normal, and sometimes throwing through some stiffness is what has to happen to help the arm get ready for the next start.-This is Chuck Hernandez at www.insidebaseball.com. Let's talk a little bit about what we do in between starts for pitchers, and what we should be doing for all of our young players when they're getting ready to prepare. One of the important things is, if we're going to pitch once a week, or every five days in a pro setting, which doesn't usually happen in youth ball as much, but we want to have one day built in in-between where maybe we have a bullpen session. And what we're looking for in a bullpen session generally, is probably a 30-35 pitch routine done at maybe a 75% effort level kind of in between. Just so a pitcher can repeat his delivery, get a feel for his mound, get a feel for his secondary pitches, and also work out some of the stiffness from previous games. Now this is a key component. If you're coaching young kids, you have to be very aware of how they're arm's feeling. So the rule of 30-35 pitches doesn't always have to apply. A young man that's doing great, his arm feels great, you might be able to go a little bit more with that young fella. Sometimes guys come out of games very sore, we may have to lower it or not do it all-- or maybe just go do it on some flat ground, just to kind of work out some stiffness. But it's very normal to pitch and be stiff when you're done, and the only way to get out of it is to actually go out and throw some, and that will relieve some of that stiffness from game to game. Pitching on Saturday and not taken up a ball until next Saturday is not gonna do a whole lot for that pitchers ability to improve. So we'd like to try to get some sort of a system where there's a long toss today in there, there's a couple games of long catch, soft catch, and again, a bullpen day-- two days prior to when you pitch is perfect. One day or three days ahead, weather permitting or whatever, can also work. But ideally, two days. If gonna pitch a Saturday ball game on Monday-- maybe play a little long catch Tuesday do the same. Wednesday, throw your bullpen. Again, 30, 35, 40 pitches. 25 depending on age. And again, how your pitcher's responding to all of his workload. OK? And then Thursday, Friday is pretty much a light catch kind of day prior to pitching. And that will get you prepared. Just, very quickly, when you're having a bullpen session, a lot of young kids, they have one goal in mind and that's to throw it as hard as they can. And we all understand that. And I understand that that gets rewarded a great deal, but it's not really helping him progress his game. OK? So what we try to do-- or I have tried to implement in most places-- I always start my bullpens with 5-6 fastballs to the arm side. So right handers are down and away from a right hander, left handers-- your down and away from a left hander. You're going to go five or six fastballs on one half of the plate, five or six fastballs on the other half of the plate. Let's go to 3, 4, or 5 change ups. Then maybe you spin a couple breaking balls easy, and then go to the stretch, which is very overlooked. And just remember, not many guys give up three run homers out of the wind up. So, in youth ball, it's almost contagious. Every young kid wants to just pitch from the windup. You have to practice equally from the stretch. So about halfway through that bullpen, get into the stretch, and you can kind of repeat the same routine. You might cut down a couple pitches here or there. And always be objective, and be open minded about how your pitcher's arm is feeling. And remember, more isn't always better. Sometimes less is better, and when you want to get some work done, there's a lot of ways to do it-- short drills rather than to be full go out on a mound.

Coach Chuck Hernandez shares how you can develop a start to start routine for young pitchers in this segment. Coach Hernandez is a firm believer that there needs to be a bullpen or side session in between starts, and in a perfect world 2 days prior to the start is when this should happen. The other days in between the starts and side sessions is where you get running and long tossing done. Remember a stiff arm is normal, and sometimes throwing through some stiffness is what has to happen to help the arm get ready for the next start.

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